and approved rites of the Catholic church, in the solemn administration of the abovesaid sacraments.

"I do embrace and receive all and every thing that hath been defined and declared by the holy council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification.

I do in like manner profess, that in mass is offered a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead, and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is a change made of the whole substance of bread into the body, and of the whole substance of wine into the blood, which change the Catholic church calls transubstan

tiation.

"I believe also, that under one kind only, a whole and entire Christ, and a true sacrament, is taken.

"I do firmly maintain that there is a purgatory, and that the souls there detained, are relieved by the prayers of the faithful.

"I do likewise believe, that the saints reigning together with Christ, are to be worshipped and prayed unto, and that they do offer up prayers for us, and that their relics are to be worshipped.

66

"I do most firmly assert, that the images of Christ, and of the mother of God, always a virgin, and of the other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration is to be given to them. "I also affirm, that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the church, and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian people. "I do acknowledge the holy, catholic, apostolic, Roman church, to be the mother and mistress of all churches, and do promise and swear true obedience to the bishop of Rome and successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ.

I do also, without any doubt, receive and profess all other things which have been delivered, defined, and declared, by the sacred canons and general councils, and especially by the holy council of Trent: and all things contrary thereto, and all heresies whatsoever, condemned, rejected, and anathematized by the church, I do likewise condemn, reject and anathematize."

To make the matter as sure as possible, an oath is subjoined to the above creed, to be taken by all the clergy. Having made profession of their faith, they add, "This is the true Catholic faith, without which no man can he saved, and which at this time I freely confess and truly embrace; and I will take care, by the help of God, that the same be retained and firmly professed, whole and inviolate, as long as I live, and as much as in me lies; that it be held, taught, and preached, by all those that are under my power, and by such as I shall have charge over in my profession, thus I, N. N. do promise, vow, and swear; so help me God, and these his holy gospels."

Such is the famous creed of Pope Pius IV., which is understood to express the whole faith of a Papist, in addition to the twelve articles in what is commonly called the apostles' creed. It is made the basis of several catechisms, which are in my possession. The above is a translation of it, as given by Mr. Bennett in his Memorial of the Reformation, 2d edit. chap. i. I have given it at length, not for the purpose

king an exposure of its errors at present, as I have exposed most

of them already; but for the purpose of exposing the impudence of such writers as Bishop Hay, who assert that no enemy of popery could ever yet show that any pope ever taught bad doctrine. It may safely be left in the hands of any child who can read the Bible with understanding; and I have no doubt that any such child would soon perceive its doctrine to be bad in the extreme.

On this creed, and the solemn oath with which it is swallowed, I only remark farther at present, that it binds every Romish priest to believe both parts of a contradiction, and to abstain from every attempt to understand the word of God. He swears to believe all that has been delivered by general councils, especially the council of Trent; and that he will never receive or interpret the holy scriptures otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers. Such unanimous consent never existed, and when a priest swears that he will never receive the scriptures otherwise, it is the same as to swear that he will never receive them at all; and from the manner in which some of the priests speak and write of the Bible, we may charitably believe that they are true to their oath. Besides, it is well known that there are many contradictions in the decrees, canons, and definitions of general councils. How then can a man swear to receive and obey them all, without an absolute surrender of his reason and his conscience? I know that Papists think very lightly of surrendering their reason, for it is what they do openly and avowedly every day, when they worship a piece of bread as the God that made them. But they do not yet so explicitly surrender their conscience; though it is virtually done by their avowal of implicit belief that a thing is and is not at the same time; or, for instance, that the pope is above a council, and that a council is above the pope, are both true.

CHAPTER CVI.

THE POPE'S EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE FRENCH EMPEROR.

SATURDAY, July 22d, 1820.

THE infallibility of the pope does not imply foreknowledge, which is one reason why the holy father commits so many blunders, both in his teaching and administration. It is in the recollection of many of my readers, that, about twenty years ago, the pope blessed Bonaparte as his dear son in the faith, and even consented to set the imperial crown on his head. The holy father seemed even to glory in this dear son, as if he had been another Elijah, who had restored the true religion, after it had been subverted by the Jezebel goddess of reason. But the father did not foresee the future perversity of this son; and that the dignity and power, to which he had contributed to raise him, would be employed against himself. Such, however, turned out to be the case. Bonaparte was as great an oppressor of the holy see, as the king of the Lombards had been. It does not, however, appear that the present pope had so much interest in heaven as his predecessor Stephen had; or, that the Virgin Mary and St. Peter interposed on his behalf, either by word or writing. Indeed, so far as appears, he might have been calling upon these for help till this day, and with as much earnestness as the priests

of Baal called upon their god, and he would have called in vain, had it not been for the persevering and successful exertions of a government and people, whom he curses and excommunicates every year on Holy Thursday.

The pope could not bring any thunder from heaven, to bear upon his relentless oppressor, but he made the best use he could of that which he professed to have on the earth, as the reader will see from the following authentic document. I shall give it entire, for the sake of preserving it for the use of future historians, and writers on the popish controversy. It is a great deal too long; and it will occupy the remainder of this, and half of the next number. Like the writings of almost all Papists, from the head of their church downwards, it is remarkable for its profuse wordiness, which arises, I suppose, from the want of distinct conception; for when a writer has an idea distinctly in his own head, he will easily be able to convey it to others in few words. It would be impossible to do justice to this document, in the way of abridging it; and, therefore, I hope, the reader will bear with it, though it should try his patience, for the sake of the historical, and the other curious matter which it contains. The Excommunication of the French Emperor and his adherents, by the Pope.

The following curious paper is translated from the Latin original, which was sent over by Mr. Hill, the British minister, in Sardinia. A translation in French has been circulated by the British government, for the information of the Catholic world. We copy the present translation, which we believe to be correct, from the Literary Panorama for March.

66

"Apostolic Letters, in form of brief,

Whereby are declared excommunicated, and de novo are excommunicated, the authors, the active agents, and the partisans of the usurpation on the state of Rome, and on the other states appertaining to the holy see.

"PIUS PP. VII.—Ad Perpetuam rei Memoriam:

"When, on the memorable 2d of February, 1808, the French troops, after having invaded the other and the richest provinces of the pontifical state, with a sudden and hostile impetus entered Rome itself, it was impossible that we could bring our mind to attribute that outrage simply to political or to military reasons, reported among the people by the invaders; that is to say, to defend themselves in this city, and to exclude their enemies from the territories of the holy Roman church; neither did we see in it merely the desire of the chief of the French nation to take vengeance on our firmness and constancy, in refusing to acquiesce in his requests. We saw instantly, that this proceeding had a much more extensive view than a temporary occupation, a military precaution, or a simple demonstration of anger against ourselves. We saw revive, and again glow, and again burst out on all sides, those fraudulent and impious plots, which appeared to be, if not subdued, at least repressed; which originated among those men deceived and deceiving by philosophy and vain deceit, introducing damnable heresies,' and who had long planned, and formed parties to accomplish, the destruction of

our holy religion. We saw that, in our humble personage, they insulted, they circumvented, they attacked the holy see of the most blessed prince of the apostles, in order that they might by any means overthrow it from its very foundation; and with it the Catholic church, although established on the most solid rock, by its divine Founder, in this holy see

"We had thought, we had also hoped, that the French government, taught by experience the evils in which that most powerful nation had involved itself by unreined impiety and schism, and convinced by the unanimous declarations of by far the greater part of its citizens, was truly and heartily persuaded, that its own security, as well as the public happiness, was deeply interested in the free and sincere restoration of the exercise of the Catholic religion, and in its defence against all assailants. Moved by this opinion, and excited by this hope, we, unworthy as we are, who upon earth represent the God of peace, scarcely perceived any prospect of repairing the disasters of the Gallican church, when the whole world is our witness! with what alacrity we listened to proposals of peace, and how much it cost us, and the church itself, to conduct those treaties to such a conclusion as it was possible to obtain: but, immortal God! in what did our hopes terminate! What has been the fruit of our so great indulgence and liberality! From the very promulgation of that agreement, we have been constrained to complain, with the prophet, Behold, in peace my bitterness becomes most bitter. This bitterness we have not concealed from the church, nor from our brethren the cardinals of the holy Roman church, in our allocution to them in consistory, May 24, 1802. We then informed them, that, to the convention we had made, were added several articles unknown to us, and disapproved by us the instant we knew them. In reality, by these articles, not only was the free exercise of the Catholic religion withheld, in points of the greatest consequence and interest to the liberty which had been verbally assured, stipulated, and solemnly promised, as introductory to the convention, and as its basis; but also, in several of these articles, the doctrine of the gospel was closely attacked.

"Nearly the same was the result of the convention concluded by us with the government of the Italian republic. Those very articles were interpreted in a manner altogether arbitrary, with highly perverse and peculiar fraud, as well as injury; against which arbitrary and perverse interpretation we had guarded with the utmost solicitude.

"Both these conventions being violated in this manner, and disfigured in whatever had been stipulated in favour of the church, the spiritual power also being subjected to the will of the laic; so far were the salutary effects that we had proposed to ourselves following these conventions, that other and still greater evils and injuries to the church of Jesus Christ, we saw growing and spreading daily.

"We shall not here enumerate particularly those evils, because they are sufficiently known in the world, and deplored with tears by all good men: they are besides sufficiently declared in the two consistorial allocutions, which we made March 16, and July 11, 1808; which we caused to be made public, as much as our state of restraint admitted. From those all may know, and all posterity will see, what at that time were our sentiments on so many and great injuries suffered from the government of France, in things appertaining to the church: they will know

with what longsuffering and patience we were so long silent,—with what constancy we maintained the love of peace; and how firinly we retained the hope, that a remedy adequate to such great evils might be found, and that an end might be put to them; for which cause we have deferred from day to day the lifting up of our apostolic voice. They will see what were our labours and anxieties,-what our endeavours, deprecations, protestations, sighings, (incessant have they been!) that the wounds of the church might be healed,-while we have entreated that new sufferings might not be inflicted upon her: but, in vain have been exhausted all the powers of humility, of moderation, of mildness, by which hitherto we have studied to shield the rights and interests of the church from him, who had associated himself with the devices of the impious to destroy it utterly; who, with that spirit had affected friendship for her, that he might more readily betray her,-who had feigned to protect her, that he might more securely oppress her.

"Much and often, even daily, have we been bid to hope, especially when our journey into France was wished for and solicited; but from that period our expostulations have been eluded by bold tergiversations and cavillings; and by answers given purposely to prolong the matter, or to mislead by fallacy. At length they could obtain no attention. As the time appointed for maturing the counsels already taken against this holy see, and the church of Christ, approached, we were assailed, we were harassed perpetually, and perpetually were demands, either exorbitant or captious, made; the nature of which showed clearly enough, and more than enough, that two objects, equally destructive and ruinous to this holy see and church, were kept in view; that is to say, either that by assenting to them we should be guilty of betraying our office, or that if we refused, occasion might from thence be taken of declaring against us an open war.

46

As we could in nowise comply with those demands made upon us, they being contrary to conscience, from thence a pretext was formed to send, in a hostile manner, military forces into this holy city: they seized Fort Saint Angelo; they occupied stations in the streets, in the squares; the palace itself, in which we resided, the Quirinal palace, was threatened with all the horrors of war and siege, by a great body of infantry and cavalry: but we, being strengthened by God, through whom we can do all things, and sustained by a conscientious sense of our duty, were nothing alarmed, nor dejected in our mind by this sudden terror, and this display of the apparatus of war. With a peaceful, an equable mind, as we ought, we performed the sacred ceremonies, and the divine mysteries appropriated to that most holy day, with all becoming solemnity; and neither through fear, nor through forgetfulness, nor by negligence, were any of them omitted, which were appointed as our duty in such a situation of things.

"We recollected, with Saint Ambrose, (de Basilic. tradend. No. 17,) that the holy man Naboth, the possessor of his vineyard, when called by demand of the king to surrender his vineyard, in which the king, after having rooted up the vines, might plant a vile garden of herbs, he answered him, 'The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to thee! Much less could we suppose it was lawful for us to deliver up so ancient and sacred a heritage, (i. e. the temporal sovereignty of this holy see, not without the evident appointment of divine